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Veal Omelet

A baked loaf of veal, salt pork, eggs, crackers, flour, sweet cream, sage, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Shape the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the veal, salt pork, eggs, rolled crackers, flour, sweet cream, sage, pepper, and salt. Mix well and shape into a loaf.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the loaf in a baking dish and bake for 2 hours, basting often.

  2. Allow to cool and serve cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Flour + sagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its meaty texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the lean meat from drying out during baking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Rolled crackers
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the loaf hold together.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Basting the loaf during baking. Lean veal can dry out over a two-hour bake. Regular basting adds moisture to the surface and helps keep the interior juicy.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, egg, flour, cream, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, egg, flour, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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